New Delhi, December 10
With remarks of party leader Prakash Karat about the need for the government to conclude talks at IAEA by December being seen as a warning to the government, CPI(M) leaders have emphasised that their aim was to stop the deal and not to de-stabilise the government.
Party leaders said Karat’s remarks had laid stress on the party’s opposition to the deal for its implications on the independence of country’s nuclear power programme and foreign policy. They said the remarks should not be strictly seen as a deadline and the Left parties were waiting to hear from the government on the IAEA talks.
The CPI has also preferred not to comment on Karat’s remarks, made on Saturday at a meeting of the party’s Delhi unit. Karat had said
when the officials returned from the IAEA talks, the party would convey to the government not to go ahead with the deal and the issue must be resolved by the end of December. He had also said if the government still went ahead, the party would have to prepare for Lok Sabha elections.
CPI leader D.Raja told The Tribune today that there was no change in the party’s opposition to the operationalisation of the deal. “The position of the Left is that the government has to come back to the UPA-Left committee about its talks at the IAEA. I don’t know about the time frame,” he said. Karat’s remarks are also being seen to mean that the concession for IAEA talks was a time-gaining exercise before the Left came out of its talks with the UPA. The CPI(M) leader had said yesterday that the Left parties did not want the government to fall before the Gujarat elections as the BJP could gain from it.
Observers here said the outcome of Assembly election results in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh can have an impact on the government’s ability to gain further time on the deal. While a victory in Gujarat is likely to improve the government’s ability to negotiate with the Left, a defeat could lead to demands for immediate steps to review the deal.
